The Russian remodeling of Genghis
Khan By Dmitry Shlapentokh
Genghis Khan and his successors - the
great conquerors who built the greatest
continental empire in the world - have fascinated
historians and writers for centuries. Still, in
practically all countries that encountered
Mongolian armies, Genghis Khan has almost never
been seen in a positive light and none has tried
to make him its own.
Russia, which had
been swept by Mongolian hordes in 1237-1240 was no
exception, at least throughout Russian modern
history. Both tsarist and Soviet historians
invariably presented the
Mongols - called Tartars by
the Russians - as a great evil; and the
centuries-long struggle against them was lionized
in public discourse. The situation has changed in
the post-Soviet era where, all of a sudden,
various segments of the elite in the Russian
Federation have started to either directly or
indirectly associate themselves with the great
Mongolian warrior and his empire.
Surprisingly enough - at least at first
glance - some ethnic Russians have begun to place
the Mongolian conqueror in a positive light. And
this, among many other things, has been manifested
in the recently released Russian movie
Mongol, which is dedicated to the Mongol
conquest.
One, of course, could suggest
that the interest in Genghis Khan, besides the
picturesqueness of the movie's image itself,
attracts Russian viewers by that fact that he
represents the strong leader for whom the Russian
public longs (which is one of the reasons for
President Vladimir Putin's popularity).
Still, the Russian public does not need to
be attracted to a Mongolian ruler. A strong man
from Russia could well appeal to the Russian
populace. Indeed, the filmmakers could have placed
on the screen a native Russian ruler such as Ivan
the Terrible or Peter the Great, or even Stalin.
Thus, the interest in Genghis Khan is not
connected just with the Russian love of strong
leaders but is also caused by other deeper
reasons; the interest in the Mongols is due to an
attempt to create an historical legacy for keeping
together the various ethnic groups of the Russian
Federation.
During the Soviet era,
communist ideologists proclaimed that various
ethnic groups of the USSR should live together
mostly because of common social, political and
ideological bonds. With the end of the USSR, the
Communist ideology disappeared as a binding force.
The Russian elite was in search of an ideological
substitute that would provide justification as to
why various ethnic groups of the Russian
Federation still should live together. And here
the doctrine of Eurasianism appears quite handy.
Eurasianism emerged in the 1920s among
Russian emigres. The proponents of the doctrine
proclaimed that Russians should not only have
nothing to do with the West but not even with
Slavdom. According to Eurasianists, Russians are a
mixture of Slavic and Turkic blood and, as an
ethnicity/civilization in its own right, is bound
together with other similar people - the
minorities of Russia/USSR.
And they are
cemented in this quasi-nation/quasi-civilization
of "Eurasia" by the great feat of the Mongol
conquest. And, here, Mongols, in general, and
Genghis Khan, in particular, had been transformed
from bloody butchers into wholesome builders of
the empire. There was actually no Mongol conquest
in the view of Eurasianists but, rather, a healthy
"symbiosis" existed between Russians and Mongols.
Moreover, and this was most important in
Eurasianist historiography, there was no
liberation from Mongol/Tartar rule but Mongols
simply passed to the Russians the leadership of
the great Eurasian empire that the Mongols had
built.
This direct connection between the
Mongols and the great pre-revolutionary/Soviet
Russia - and the dream that Russia's leading role
in global history is not lost and could be brought
back in the form of a great multi-ethnic empire of
Russians and non Slavic minorities - explains the
fascination with Genghis Khan and is the central
theme of the movie.
Still, this attempt to
enlist Genghis Khan in the cause of Russia's
imperial greatness has been resisted by Russia's
still numerous Russian minorities, whose members
and influence have grown in the course of
post-Soviet history. They have no desire to be
Russia's "younger brothers", and have their own
vision of Genghis Khan. Other movies on Genghis
Khan are in the process of being created in
Yakutia, the northern enclave in Siberia.
The movie's producer made it clear that
Genghis Khan and his legacy had nothing in common
with Russians but actually with Yakuts and other
Turkic and Mongolian people (in his
interpretation, Yakutia became a Turkic nation).
The political implication of the movie is clear:
Yakutia should, if not be absolutely independent,
at least have broader autonomy in the Russian
Federation and take control of Yakutia's rich
natural resources.
The Russian elite
strongly protests such an interpretation of
Genghis Khan, and a commentator from Izvestia,
made an ironical comment about transforming
Genghis Khan in Yakutia. The author of the article
mocked Yakutia pretensions of grandness, but this
is more than irony about the Yakutian elite
megalomania or even the Yakutia elite’s desire to
control Yakutia’s natural resources.
It
has much more serious implications: by recognizing
the Yakuts' position, and that of other Turkic
minorities of Russia, of being the sole successors
of the Mongol empire, the implication is that
Russians at best could be relegated here to the
position of the "younger brothers"; and, quite
possibly, Russians would have no place in this
Eurasian arrangement at all. The author of the
quoted article stated that, at present, Yakutia
systematically tries to replace Russians in all
the good jobs with Yakuts.
This increasing
pressure of the minorities from the different
parts of the Russian Federation has been
reinforced by the fear of external non-Slavic
emigration, mostly from Central Asia, the
Caucasus, and, especially, China. It has become
clear for increasing numbers of Russians that this
pressure could not just relegate them to the
position of "younger brothers" in any geopolitical
arrangement but put an end to their very existence
in Eurasia.
And this pushed the Russians
to return to a vision of the Mongols, and Asiatics
in general, as a vicious mortal threat for Russia
and the rest of Europe. And, while in the Russian
view, the West has been ungrateful and hostile to
Russia, Russia is still by the logic of events the
first line of defense of European Christendom, the
role that it has played since the 13th century.
Dmitry Shlapentokh, PhD, is associate
professor of history, College of Liberal Arts and
Sciences, Indiana University South Bend. He is
author of East Against West: The First
Encounter - The Life of Themistocles (2005).
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